Chris Curran (died 19 August 1996) was an Irish actor, singer and musician.
Born in Cork, Curran was four when he made his stage debut at the Cork Opera House in Frank Benson's touring production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream . [1] He went on to study acting under Father Seamus O'Flynn at the Cork Shakespearean Company, otherwise known as "The Loft". He continued to perform at the Cork Opera House while studying engineering at University College Cork. [1] In 1953, Curran joined the Radio Éireann Players, a repertory company which performed in the station's weekly drama productions. [2] A year later, and at short notice, he took the lead role in a broadcast of Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt which was produced by Tyrone Guthrie in his first collaboration with Ireland's national radio station. [3]
For the next four decades, Curran enjoyed a varied career as a stage and screen actor, television narrator and pantomime performer. [2] In the early 1960s, he provided voice-overs for all the characters in RTÉ Television's puppet series for children, Murphy agus a Cháirde ("Murphy and his friends"). His last television appearances came in 1995 and 1996 when he portrayed Father Jim Johnson in two episodes of Channel 4's sitcom Father Ted : "Competition Time" and "Cigarettes and Alcohol and Rollerblading".
Chris Curran was married to Josephine Scanlon, a Limerick-born soprano, with whom he had two daughters. [1] [2] He died in Leopardstown Park Hospital in Dublin ('in his early seventies') and is buried at Shanganagh Cemetery in Shankill. [4]
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1965 | Young Cassidy | Man in Phoenix Park | |
1967 | Ulysses | Myles Crawford | |
1969 | I Can't... I Can't | ||
1977 | A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man | Auctioneer | |
1982 | Cold River | ||
1996 | Moll Flanders | Mazzawatti Butler |
Hilton Edwards was an English-born Irish actor, lighting designer, and theatrical producer. He co-founded the Gate Theatre with his partner Micheál Mac Liammóir and two others, and has been referred to as the founder of Irish theatre. He was one of the most recognisable figures in the arts in 20th-century Ireland.
Cillian Murphy is an Irish actor. His works encompass both stage and screen, and his accolades include an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award and a Golden Globe Award.
Peer Gynt is a five-act play in verse written in 1867 by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen. It is one of Ibsen's best known and most widely performed plays.
Charles Keating was an English actor.
Sir William Tyrone Guthrie was an English theatrical director instrumental in the founding of the Stratford Festival of Canada, the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at his family's ancestral home, Annaghmakerrig, near Newbliss in County Monaghan, Ireland. He is famous for his original approach to Shakespearean and modern drama.
Six Characters in Search of an Author is an Italian play by Luigi Pirandello, written and first performed in 1921. An absurdist metatheatric play about the relationship among authors, their characters, and theatre practitioners, it premiered at the Teatro Valle in Rome to a mixed reception, with shouts from the audience of "Manicomio!" ("Madhouse!") and "Incommensurabile!", a reaction to the play's illogical progression. Reception improved at subsequent performances, especially after Pirandello provided for the play's third edition, published in 1925, a foreword clarifying its structure and ideas.
The Guthrie Theater, founded in 1963, is a center for theater performance, production, education, and professional training in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The concept of the theater was born in 1959 in a series of discussions among Sir Tyrone Guthrie, Oliver Rea and Peter Zeisler. Disenchanted with Broadway, they intended to form a theater with a resident acting company, to perform classic plays in rotating repertory, while maintaining the highest professional standards.
David Patrick Kelly is an American actor, musician and lyricist who has appeared in numerous films and television series. He is best known for his role as the main antagonist Luther in the cult film The Warriors (1979). Kelly is also known for his collaborations with Spike Lee, in the films Malcolm X (1992), Crooklyn (1994), and Chi-Raq (2015), and with David Lynch, appearing in Wild at Heart (1990) as well as Twin Peaks (1990–91) and its 2017 revival.
Irina Brook is a Franco-British stage director, producer, and actress. She was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2002 by the French Ministry of Culture. In May 2017 Brook was upgraded to Officier de l'ordre des Arts et Lettres and awarded the Légion d'honneur.
Enda Walsh is an Irish playwright.
Colin George was a Welsh actor and director, who was the founding Artistic Director of the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield (1971).
Scott Thompson Baker is an American television actor. He is known for playing the roles of Colton Shore on the ABC Daytime soap opera General Hospital, Craig Lawson on the ABC Daytime soap opera All My Children and Connor Davis on the CBS Daytime soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful. He also had a recurring role as Brian Alexander on The WB series Savannah (1996).
Eamon Gerard Murphy was a Northern Irish film, television and theatre actor.
John Bernard Derum is an Australian stage, film and television actor. He has also an artistic administrator and directed and produced for theatre companies throughout Australia and for television. Derum was worked as a politician for local council.
Rebecca Storm is a British singer and musical theatre actress. Best known for her role as Mrs Johnstone in smash hit musical Blood Brothers. Her 1985 hit single "The Show" was the theme to the ITV television series Connie.
Shay Healy was an Irish songwriter, broadcaster and journalist. He is best known for his role as host of Nighthawks, a RTÉ Television chat show of the late 1980s and early 1990s, and for composing "What's Another Year", Ireland's winning entry in the 1980 Eurovision Song Contest.
The Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards recognise outstanding achievements in Irish theatre.
Pat Ahern is an Irish Roman Catholic priest, traditional musician, composer, and the founder, artistic director and producer (1974–1997) of Siamsa Tíre, the Irish National Folk Theatre which performed throughout Ireland and on three continents.
Nice Fish is a 2013 play by Mark Rylance, co-written with Louis Jenkins and adapted from poems by the latter. It received its world premiere production at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, opening on April 6, 2013, and running through May 18, 2013.. The original production was directed by Rylance and Claire van Kampen and featured Rylance as Ron as well as actors Jim Lichtscheidl as Eric, Emily Swallow as Flo and Chris Carlson as Wayne. The cast also included Bob Davis as DNR Officer and Tyson Forbes as Wainwright.
William A. Murphy, better known as Bill Murphy, is an Irish theatre and screen actor, writer and producer. He has appeared in films such as Ordinary Decent Criminal (2000), My Brother's War (1997), Criminal Affairs (1997) and Moving Target (2000). He has also had roles in TV series such as Jack Taylor (2010), Titanic: Blood and Steel (2012), Vikings: Valhalla (2022) and The Gone (2023), and he portrayed Nick Barret on the RTÉ One soap opera Fair City in 2003. He has had roles in theatre and concert productions of Once (2015–2024), The Country Girls (2019), and Joyce's Women (2022). In 2022 he wrote, produced and starred in the short film Lily's Theme.